Immunotherapy refers to treatment which stimulates a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. The immune system normally kills viruses, bacteria, and parasites. There is a higher rate of cancer in people with weak immune systems. If the immune system could be taught to recognize cancer cells as foreign and dangerous, it should theoretically be able to kill the cancer.Active immunotherapy tries to directly get the patient’s immune system to work on the cancer. Cancer vaccines are examples of this. A vaccine can be made of cancer cells or parts of cancer cells, and theoretically should boost the immune response. To date there has not been any progress with active immunotherapy in treating mesothelioma.
Passive immunotherapy means giving a person immunologically active compounds to attack the cancer cells. There have been some advances in this area, but not yet with mesothelioma. The most active compounds are called monoclonal antibodies. These are antibodies made outside the body that can attack the cancer. One called Avastin (bevacizumab) was FDA approved to treat non-small cell lung cancer in 2006.
Dr. Kaplan
